20 Apps You’ll Need for Better Instagram Pics and Videos

Instagram can be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly. But plain cell phone photos with vintage inspired filters can only go so far. Luckily, there are plenty more apps available to enhance Instagram photos and videos even further. We asked around to find some favorites among Instagram users. Below are 20 of them.

Snapseed is a photo-editing app popular with bloggers and creative types. It gives the user control over nearly every aspect of their photos, from full auto correct features to small adjustments.

Photographer Jeffrey Kaphan said that Snapseed is his “go-to” app for iPhone photography. After trying a number of the other photography apps available, he said Snapseed is still the only one he uses regularly. This app is available on both iPhone and Android devices.

This mobile photo editor offers basic controls along with filters, frames, stickers, and other effects. The app itself is free but offers some in-app purchases like additional effects and filters. Aviary is available for both iPhone and Android devices.

Sometimes, one photo on its own won’t get your full message across. For photo collages, Fry’s app of choice is Pic Stitch. Pic Stitch is a free app, available on both iPhone and Android devices, that offers several basic layouts and more advanced ones that can be purchased within the app.

This app, produced by Visual Supply Company, is another that is popular with a lot of creative professionals because of its editing controls and filter styles. It is available in both iPhone and Android versions.

Artist Laura E. Pritchett uses both VSCO Cam and Snapseed and said she’s been very happy with the quality they produce:

“I’m often asked on social media if I am posting DSLR images and I think those slight adjustments to contrast and color that I’m able to make when editing can help to give them that comparable feel.”

Afterlight has a simple design and aims to make photo editing quick and easy. The app features 56 different filters, 66 textures, 15 adjustment tools, basic editing features and frames. It is available for both Android and iPhone devices.

If you want to take a photo that includes yourself or requires you to set your phone down on a tripod or other surface, this app can take photos on a timer of up to 30 seconds and then export the photos. This app is available for both Android and iPhone.

Superimpose offers tools that might look familiar to PhotoShop users, including the ability to blend multiple photos together into one seamless image. This app is currently only available for iOS devices.

Everlapse is an app that creates flipbook style videos using a series of photos. So brands and other users can show off more than one photo within a post and even add others to collaborate on a photo album. It is currently only available on iPhone devices.

Double exposure is an effect that mixes multiple images together. This free app gives users that ability, which often leads to a dreamy type of effect but can also help depict time lapse. Free and paid versions are available on iOS devices, but there’s no current Android version of the app.

Like its name suggests, PicTapGo aims to make taking, editing, and posting photos as quick as possible. The app offers real time previews and even saves the filters and tools you use most often so that they’ll be easily accessible.

Blogger Nicole Maxfield uses PicTapGo and has been happy with how many of its filters seem to brighten up her mobile photos:

“I use it because it has a ton of filters to choose from, and most of them brighten up the picture.”

Diptic is another app that allows users to create collages with multiple photos. But at $1 per download, it gives some additional editing options over what some free apps like Pic Stitch offer. This app is available for both iPhone and Android devices.

Lighting is a hugely important part of producing quality images. LensFlare comes with over 50 different effects to adjust lighting so that photos are clear and bright. The app is currently only available for iOS devices.

People with Apple computers may be familiar with the iMovie software. But this program is also available in a mobile version that gives users many of the same controls. The program is only available on Apple devices.

Filmmaker Nazar Melconian enjoys the controls and ease of use of this program:

“Unlike a photo, a video is much harder to come off well made, well told, and therefore engaging or relevant due to the fact you suddenly are incorporating moving elements and sound, all of which I control with a quick edit with iMovie for the iPhone.”

This mobile app offers more artistic photo editing options, including HDR, watercolor, and pencil effects. It also includes a community of photographers and artists who use the app. This app is available for iPhone, Android, and other Web and mobile platforms.

This free app gives iPhone users the ability to slow the shutter speed on their phone’s camera, which can create interesting effects when photographing moving objects. It also offers a self-timer, photo effects, and basic editing tools.

Instagram’s video platform actually offers some decent features, but the ability to add a soundtrack is one that must be sought elsewhere.

Photographer and videographer Meagan Cignoli uses Vinyet, an editing app that also offers filters and stop motion features, to add music to her animated or stop motion videos on Instagram. Vinyet is currently only available for iPhone.

Annie Pilon is a staff writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles and feature stories. She is a freelance writer specializing in marketing, social media, and creative topics. When she’s not writing for her various freelance projects or her personal blog Wattlebird, she can be found exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

17 Reactions

Aww I really enjoyed this article. I must admit that I am a photo fan when it comes to my mobile phone. My friends would scold me that I have too many editing apps on my phone. But I like it because that’s the way I am.

Hello Annie, First of all, thanks for the classic Instagram app list. The new version of Instagram comes with the latest design that makes it faster and valuable. However, these apps add extra magic in the photography. I personally like Superimpose and Double Exposer for the creativity on Instagram.

I like many of these apps and use several of them for filters, cropping and adjusting exposure, contrast etc.

Brand new on itunes – Check out RainbowLove Greetings App on itunes and you can add all kinds of colorful rainbows, hearts, boho symbols, geo patterns, borders. Every photo needs some color. With this app you can send or make ecards or use your own photos to make ecards, memories or postcards.

Hello Friends.. You can also Try InstaMapia for instagram to experience instagram in a totally different way, You can save and share images and you can also search for user or hash tags, plus its geo tagging option will help you to take a tour of the world on the map..
Try this out from:http://instamapia.com/

Do you have any app recommendations for branding your handle and website in the same sized font and location on multiple photos? I’m creating a 365 day program and want to include these elements on each photo but I am having a hard time finding an app that will save this so I can quickly load it.

This is a very good list, all the apps are very helpful. It’s great how third-party apps can easily cover almost any need one can feel. Editing apps were always the most widely used, and there was only one domain not covered. And i’m talking about follower management. But since instagram has implemented its following and action per hour limitations, the need has risen significantly. The best app i could find yet is fast-unfollow.com, it can quickly get rid of up to 5000 users not following back per day, so if your a fan of follow-to-follow method – it’ll help you a lot. First 1000 is free so check it out. Hope it’ll be of use for someone;)

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